{"id":3828,"date":"2023-03-13T12:44:03","date_gmt":"2023-03-13T16:44:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/?p=3828"},"modified":"2023-03-17T10:59:54","modified_gmt":"2023-03-17T14:59:54","slug":"a-treasure-trove-on-campus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/2023\/a-treasure-trove-on-campus\/","title":{"rendered":"A TREASURE TROVE ON CAMPUS"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Jan. 15, 1940, renowned poet, playwright and novelist Langston Hughes wrote to his Cleveland friend Russell Jelliffe from New York. He was busy, he said, finishing a book, preparing for a series of lectures and considering an article on the \u201cNegro theatre.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Hughes also turned his thoughts to Cleveland, where he\u2019d spent some formative years, and to the work of Jelliffe and his wife, Rowena. They were co-founders of an arts space where Hughes had taught, written and performed.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c…I hope (and know) your drive for a real center of the arts in Cleveland will be successful,\u201d Hughes wrote. He also said that during his next trip to Cleveland he\u2019d be \u201conly too happy\u201d to do a talk, a reading or in any other way help raise money locally.<\/span><\/p>\n

The following year, the space the couple had nurtured became Karamu House, now the nation\u2019s oldest African American producing theater and cultural arts center. And the Hughes letter is part of a treasured 100-box collection that Karamu donated in 2021 to Case Western Reserve University Kelvin Smith Library.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Karamu House archive has unparalleled historical value,\u201d said library archivist <\/span>Nora Blackman<\/b> (GRS \u201987, history), who is managing the processing of the Karamu papers. \u201cWe\u2019re also excited because this manuscript collection\u2014our first documenting the Black experience\u2014represents the library\u2019s commitment to diversifying our Special Collections holdings.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Karamu President and CEO Tony F. Sias described the donation at the time as \u201ca seminal moment in Karamu\u2019s history, gifting our archival treasures to such an esteemed institution for ongoing preservation, global access and safe keeping.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The collection provides a portal into an institution continually responding to both art and politics amid decades of change. It has records from 100 seasons of theater, dance and music performances, guest books signed by luminaries including Martin Luther King Jr., and meeting notes detailing years of internal planning, discussions and debates on subjects ranging from civil rights to world premiere theatrical productions.<\/span><\/p>\n

Slated to be publicly available this spring, the collection tells \u201ca story that reflects everything that was going on in the nation, in the world,\u201d Blackman said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"a

The Karamu House collection now at Kelvin Smith Library includes a letter that Langston Hughes wrote to Russell Jelliffe, co-founder of what\u2019s now Karamu.\u00a0<\/p><\/div>\n

\"a

The Karamu House collection now at Kelvin Smith Library includes guest books that recorded visits by people including Frances Payne Bolton (the namesake of the university\u2019s School of Nursing) and Martin Luther King Jr., whose names are next to the yellow arrow.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Jan. 15, 1940, renowned poet, playwright and novelist Langston Hughes wrote to his Cleveland friend Russell Jelliffe from New York. He was busy, he said, finishing a book, preparing for a series of lectures and considering an article on the \u201cNegro theatre.\u201d
\nHughes also turned his thoughts to Cleveland, where he\u2019d spent some formative years, and to the work of Jelliffe and his wife, Rowena. …Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":3882,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artscimedia.case.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/147\/2023\/03\/14150605\/P11_KSL_MLK_FPB_sigs_IMG_3676outlineADJ.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3828"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3828"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3937,"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3828\/revisions\/3937"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}